Against Genocide

"This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal.

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"The fact that [Planned Parenthood is] getting between $500-540 million of taxpayer money is really a disgrace. It is disgusting to fund an organization like Planned Parenthood that chops up babies and sells the parts like parts to a Buick. America needs to come to grips with a 42-year nightmare of taking babies from their mother’s womb. This needs to come to an end."

Justice Ginsburg said that "at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion." The author didn't follow up to ask which populations those were, but we can see the results fairly plainly. Huckabee's language is explosive, but there's a valid point buried where he's digging.

5 comments:

Justice Ginsberg said that "at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

The lady of the Living Constitution that means what she needs it to mean in the convenience of the moment sewage isn't entirely accurate here. I lived through the era of Roe. Medical technology wasn't what it is today, particularly prenatal and pregnancy care. Fetuses weren't well taken out of the womb in survivable condition nearly as early in a pregnancy as they are today, even where the intent was there. This also was an era where, literally, back alley abortions done with coat hangars was rampant--that's no modern-day legend.

The canard about "too many of the wrong kind getting born" wasn't all that widespread, and very few serious people were taking Ehrlich seriously anymore.

For good or ill, women were dying from these events, or worse, being mutilated and having to live with that. Certainly today, though, with medical technology letting fetuses be brought to term from steadily earlier in a pregnancy while outside the mother's womb, Roe has outlived its usefulness. Especially with Roe's original dependence on State interests ahead of United States interests having gone by the boards.

In fairness, Justice Ginsburg says that herself -- she had thought that was the issue in Roe, and expected the court to continue along the population control line with Medicaid funding, but in fact it turned out to her surprise that the court had really been interested in privacy. "I turned out to be wrong about that" is a direct quote from her. But it's clear that she was thinking about, and conceived as a good, controlling unwanted populations.

"Certainly today, though, with medical technology letting fetuses be brought to term from steadily earlier in a pregnancy while outside the mother's womb, Roe has outlived its usefulness. "

Roe discussed exactly this advancing technology.

And, Roe absolutely requires the case-by-case consent of a human individual (the mother) for any abortion to occur. That means that control of unwanted populations by the government must be accomplished by some other means, not coerced abortion. Roe, therefore, arguably stands in the way of attempts by the government to use Medicare benefits (or denial of them) to coerce abortion, as China has done.

Conservatives may yet take refuge in Roe v. Wade, and much sooner than most people imagine.

I'm willing to go along with the claim that what China does is much worse. I'm not sure that makes what we do good, rather than merely better.

In any case, it's difficult to imagine a Federal government program being much more successful at encouraging abortions than what we actually observe in the black community. An elective rate of 1-in-3 represents a kind of efficiency that we don't generally see from government programs meant to "nudge" us toward preferred policies.

...Roe, therefore, arguably stands in the way of attempts by the government to use Medicare benefits (or denial of them) to coerce abortion....

There are more moral paths along which to achieve that particular end--blocking abuse of Medicare (itself an abuse, but that's a different story) to coerce abortions--then relying on a pro-abortion ruling, especially one that's outlived its usefulness, or than relying on a ruling that amends the Constitution from the bench through manufacturing--excuse me, deriving--things in it that aren't in it.